The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has issued a preliminary determination that utility-scale wind turbine towers made in China and Vietnam were illegally dumped into the U.S.

The DOC found that Chinese producers dumped wind towers into the U.S. at rates of between 20.855% and 72.69% and that Vietnamese producers dumped wind towers into the U.S. at rates of between 52.67% and 59.91%, according to law firm Wiley Rein, which represents the Wind Tower Trade Coalition (WTTC), a group of U.S. producers of utility-scale wind towers that includes Trinity Structural Towers, DMI Industries, Katana Summit and Broadwind Energy.

The case alleges that unfairly dumped and subsidized wind towers from China and Vietnam are materially injuring the U.S. wind tower industry and was brought on Dec. 29, 2011, by the WTTC. The case covers utility-scale wind towers with a minimum height of 50 meters that are designed to support wind turbines with generating capacities in excess of 100 kW.

In the companion subsidy investigation, the DOC preliminarily determined that the Chinese government provided countervailing (CVD) subsidies at a rate of between 13.74% and 26% of the value of sales, according to Wiley Rein.

This latest determination by the DOC establishes the preliminary anti-dumping margins in the dumping portion of the investigation. Following the publication of the DOC’s preliminary determination in the Federal Register, the DOC will instruct Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to begin collecting preliminary duties on entries of utility-scale wind towers at the anti-dumping rates determined.

CBP has been collecting preliminary CVD duties on entries of utility-scale wind towers since the beginning of June, according to Wiley Rein.

The DOC is scheduled to issue its final determination in the anti-dumping and countervailing-duty investigations by December.